The Young ‘Uns Need Help Not Being Mistaken for High Schoolers: Chaplains

Two young ‘uns wrote to me this month. Here are their letters.

Dear PeaceBang,
I discovered your blog a few months ago, just before starting CPE, and I have to tell you how helpful your post about CPE was to calming me down!

Now I find myself in a dilemma that I am not sure how to tackle. I just started a new internship in a very big but rather casual church. I spend most of the day (so far) sitting at a desk. My supervisor on my first day told me to wear jeans. I am perfectly comfortable with that, since I had to dress up for CPE all summer. The problem is, I am a 23 year old seminary student who is often mistaken for a high school student of https://www.oakleighgrammar.vic.edu.au/. Even with a new haircut, makeup, and very professional clothes, this summer I was placed by patients at 19 or 20 simply because I “must be at least in college to be working in a hospital.” I know that this is the curse of my genes, and I can’t tell you how often older women have told me to enjoy it. They don’t seem to understand that looking that young when you are 23 does not cultivate the professional identity or the respect that a minister needs (for instance, would you want a competent chaplain or a kid helping you in the hospital? pastor or kid preaching?).

So, now I have a dilemma. I feel like it would not be in good taste to be dressed more professionally than all the pastors at the church, but I don’t want to look 17 (a couple months ago, I was carded when buying The King’s Speech). What I have been doing is pairing the dressy/professional tops for CPE with my jeans and some black high heel boots or some black flats. Is a skirt that is about an inch or two above the knees appropriate for the office? Can I wear sneakers when working in local missions/outreach? What about casual Fridays? The other staff wear t-shirts on Fridays, but that seems to be asking to be mistaken for a teen. Do you have any advice for a poor seminary student to look professional and not like I should still be in high school?

I have been following your blog for several years now, ever since a seminarian friend referred me to your article, “What to Wear for CPE.” It was such a huge help, thank you!

I am now turning to you for further help. I am now a young, female hospice chaplain. I worry sometimes that I look too young to be taken seriously. I am tempted to dress in business-y clothes (dark, tailored pants with button down shirts) to look more professional, but I also want to make sure that I look approachable, friendly, and warm. Our dress code is business casual and I have a personal requirement that my clothes be machine washable.

Do you have any beauty tips for a young hospice chaplain? Thank you so much!

Hi, gals!

So glad to hear from you. It makes PeaceBang all warm and fuzzy to know that you’re out there rejuvenating the ministry with your boundless energy and enthusiasm and new vision. And she’s ever so glad that you are going into this work taking the issue of your image seriously. Good for you, and we here at BTFM aim to support and help you in that!

To my first writer, let’s knock off a few of your specific questions:

1. Sweetheart, I would not wear jeans to work if you’re being mistaken for a high schooler. Not that your work environment isn’t casual enough for it, but consider it training for dressing in a more professional manner for future position when you are NOT an associate and/or potentially not in a super casual setting. I must admit that I don’t understand the concept of doing office work all day, as that is inimical to my understanding of parish ministry, but I suggest that you dress for the public ministry I assume you must be doing. Bring it up a notch. You want to be able to move confidently from the office to a pastoral visit to a community event to a church meeting.

And let’s all say it together: JUST BECAUSE PEOPLE GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO UNDERDRESS DOESN’T MEAN THAT YOU SHOULD.

2. No, you should not be wearing skirts above the knee. None of us in ministry should be. I just attended a clergy meeting where I had an unwelcome view of juicy female pastor thigh for over an hour and it was really distracting. I wanted to go throw an afghan over her lap (not the dog, the knitted kind). Keep your skirts no shorter than at-the-knee-length. And I mean that. Anything shorter gets saved for your social life.

3. No, you cannot wear sneakers for anything unless it is building a school in Central America. There are far too many choices in casual footwear for any clergy to be wearing sneakers in public. Save them for the gym. Sneakers are hideous and completely inappropriate for anything but athletic activity. Cast them out like demons from your professional wardrobe.

4. No t-shirts, ever! Did you hear me, Christina? GET ME THE AXE!*
No T-shirts unless they’re paired with a pretty cardigan, or belted and worn with a scarf or in some other manner gussied up to constitute clothing rather than “sloppy garment we just throw on and consider ourselves dressed.”

5. Watch the high-heeled black boots. They can be very fetishy looking. If you don’t want to project “Ordained Dominatrix” as your image, girls, you want to be very mindful of high-heeled black boots. Stick with classic riding boot styles and you can’t go wrong.

“Hello, young chaplain, whoever you are…”**
If your dress code is business casual then you should dress in business casual and leave it to your face and manner to project warmth and relationality. I visited the doc yesterday and was helped by two young male medical professionals. The first, a nurse, was dressed in scrubs. The second, an MD, was dressed in a suit. He was obviously very professional looking, well-groomed, done up in a tie and shined shoes. But when he sat down and put on his little latex gloves to have a look at my messed up tootsie, he was very caring and warm. He took my bruised foot in his lap and talked with me and I felt completely comfortable with him. Yes, he was formally dressed in a suit but his total confidence and comfort with himself in his outfit, his setting, and his role made me feel utterly safe with him. I mean, it’s never going to feel like a hardship to PeaceBang to put her bare foot in the hands of a handsome young medico in a suit (HELLO!) but OTHERS might be intimidated or nervous.

It’s all in the way you wear it, darling. It’s in the way you come into the room, it’s in the compassion your project, it’s in your groomed hair and face, it’s in your lovely manicured hands as you shake or gently hold the one offered to you, it’s in your voice, it’s in your bearing, it’s in your centeredness in your calling and your prayer life.

*This is a cinematic reference from before your time, newbie. It is a line from the fabulously campy yet disturbing movie, “Mother, Dearest.”
** This is a musical theatre reference from way before your time, young ‘un. It is a reference to “Hello, Young Lovers” from the timeless musical, “The King And I.”